Tillakaratne Dilshan is scheduled to touch down for a flying visit to New Zealand 90 minutes before Northern Knights play Wellington Firebirds in a Twenty20 domestic match on Friday. Dilshan caught a flight after Sri Lanka's tri-series win in Bangladesh on Wednesday and his journey to the Bay of Plenty is due to finish with a helicopter ride landing on the Blake Park outfield.
"It's a reasonably tight schedule, so if there are hold-ups it could well be the case that he steps out of the chopper and into the changing room to pad up", the Northern Knights coach Grant Bradburn said. "But for a player of Dilshan's calibre, we're absolutely prepared to accommodate that. Even if he doesn't arrive until five to five, as far as I'm concerned he's in the playing XI."
Dilshan, an explosive Twenty20 opener for his country, has missed the first five games of the campaign and Northern Districts, who are fourth in the six-team competition, are looking forward to his arrival. "We've heard that he is very keen to play for us irrespective of being straight off an international journey - and that immediately sent a big message to us about his keenness and commitment to team-mates he hasn't even met yet," Bradburn said.
Dilshan said he was looking forward to a "new chapter in his cricketing life". "I've never arrived at a ground in a helicopter before and the effort to get me to the game has made me feel very welcome," he said. "It's a good feeling to have at the start of my time in New Zealand."
